* When Red is encountered in [[Mt. Silver]] during [[Generation II]], he has no speech, merely repeating an ellipsis before beginning the battle. This is a reference to the fact that during [[Generation I]] he is a silent protagonist, answering only "yes" or "no" questions. He also remains silent when confronted in [[GenerationIV]].

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* When Red is encountered in [[Mt. Silver]] during [[Generation II]], he has no speech, merely repeating an ellipsis before beginning the battle. This is a reference to the fact that during [[Generation I]] he is a silent protagonist, answering only "yes" or "no" questions. He also remains silent when confronted in latergenerations.

* Despite the ellipsis before battle, when talking to [[Copycat]], she says "<PLAYER>: Hello, do you like Pokémon?" implying that Red is speaking. However, this could be Copycat having nothing to mimic, so she's making up words.

* Despite the ellipsis before battle, when talking to [[Copycat]], she says "<PLAYER>: Hello, do you like Pokémon?" implying that Red is speaking. However, this could be Copycat having nothing to mimic, so she's making up words.

In the games

Red is introduced as a curious 11-year-old boy from Pallet Town. In the instruction manuals of Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue Versions, Red gained an interest in Pokémon after his best friend, Blue, stopped playing with him and became a bully. His adventure begins one day when Professor Oak calls the two to his lab for a choice of a starter Pokémon, the last three Pokémon Oak owns. Blue challenges Red to a battle immediately, to test out his new Pokémon, thinking he will easily beat Red.

After Red has journeyed to Viridian City to the north and taken a package back to Oak in Pallet, Oak gives Red and Blue each a Pokédex with which to record data on all known Pokémon in the Kanto region. From here, Red and Blue journey across Kanto, collecting Pokémon to build up their teams, and defeating each of the Gym Leaders in turn, with Blue always one step ahead, showing up from time to time to impede Red's progress.
Red also comes across a gang of Pokémon thieves, Team Rocket, several times through his journey, defeating a group of Team Rocket Grunts who are trying to steal Fossils from Mt. Moon, a member who is running the Nugget Bridge challenge to recruit for the organization on Route 24, and another lone member who has stolen a TM from a family in Cerulean City. Eventually, Red uncovers a plot by Team Rocket, infiltrating their hideout beneath the Celadon Game Corner and encountering their boss, Giovanni. Defeating him and ousting Team Rocket from Celadon, Red uses the Silph Scope that Giovanni leaves behind to battle Ghost-type Pokémon and save Mr. Fuji in the Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town, who is being held hostage by a trio of Grunts. Red soon journeys into Saffron City in the heart of Kanto to find it overrun by Team Rocket, who is attempting to take the recently-invented Master Ball from the Silph Co. President, and defeats Giovanni again, ending the group's plots for the time being.

With seven Badges in hand, Red encounters Giovanni for the final time—this time as the Leader of the Viridian Gym, his final obstacle before the Elite Four of Indigo Plateau. Red defeats him in battle, earning his eighth and final Badge—the Earth Badge—and causing Giovanni to realize that he has no chance at reviving Team Rocket if he cannot defeat Red. He disbands the organization, promising to go into solo training to better himself.

Making it through Victory Road and finally to Indigo Plateau, Red defeats the Elite Four and discovers, to his surprise, that Blue has defeated them before him and is the Champion. Red defeats Blue in the final battle, becoming the Champion himself, but then continues his training, rather than staying at Indigo Plateau. Encountering an offshoot of Team Rocket in the southern Sevii Islands, lead by Executive Archer, Red reveals with his Earth Badge that Giovanni has disbanded the organization, and, though defeated, the group there intends to revive Team Rocket and bring Giovanni back, having already made plans to force Pokémon to evolve with radio waves. Red continues as a wandering Trainer, eventually making his way to the caves of Mt. Silver, where he trains his Pokémon alone.

Eventually, Ethan, Kris, or Lyra arrives at Mt. Silver and challenges Red, identified only as a Pokémon Trainer. If defeated, Red vanishes from Mt. Silver, and returns every time the Elite Four is defeated again by the player of Gold, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold, or SoulSilver.

Red is portrayed as a completely silent character, and his speech consists entirely of ellipses.

Pokémon

As the player character, Red can have on his team any of the 151 Pokémon available during Generation I. In Generation III, he can have any of the 386 Pokémon available at that time, though only after the player has obtained the National Pokédex.

When he is encountered as an opponent in Generation II and Generation IV, Red has a set team, based on Generation I in-game event Pokémon, and has the highest leveled trained Pokémon yet encountered in the series, with his Pikachu at level 81 in Generation II and at level 88 in Generation IV.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Red himself appears as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, named only as "Pokémon Trainer", with a team consisting of Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. Rather than fighting himself, like the other human characters, Red sends his three Pokémon into battle, switching between them in order. He is voiced by Michele Knotz in the English version and 半場友恵 Tomoe Hanba in the Japanese version.

In other games

Red makes an appearance in both Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. While he does not appear in the games' Story Mode, he is playable in the Battle Mode when a FireRed or LeafGreen cartridge is used, with a male player character chosen. He can take on the Mt. Battle's 100-battle challenge, as well as compete in Colosseum battles. Red also made a brief appearance in the debut trailer of Pokémon Battle Revolution, having a Double Battle against Leaf, using a Deoxys in its Attack Forme and a Wailord. Despite this, he didn't appear in the final cut of the game.

In the TFG

In the anime

While Red himself does not appear in the anime, his counterpart, introduced in the first episode, is the anime's main character, Ash Ketchum. Like Red, Ash is from Pallet Town, on a journey to become a Pokémon Master. Unlike Red, Ash's journey did not end with Kanto, and Ash has continued through every other region introduced in the main series games, as well as the Orange Archipelago south of Kanto, taking the place of the player characters of Generation II during Johto, and being joined by the anime counterparts of May and Dawn during the Hoenn and Sinnoh sagas. Instead of starting with one of the standard three Kanto starters, however, Ash began his journey with a Pikachu, inspiring Pokémon Yellow's creation, as well as causing some to consider Red and Ash to be the same person, most especially due to Red owning one as well.

Trivia

When Red is encountered in Mt. Silver during Generation II, he has no speech, merely repeating an ellipsis before beginning the battle. This is a reference to the fact that during Generation I he is a silent protagonist, answering only "yes" or "no" questions. He also remains silent when confronted in later generations.

Despite the ellipsis before battle, when talking to Copycat, she says "<PLAYER>: Hello, do you like Pokémon?" implying that Red is speaking. However, this could be Copycat having nothing to mimic, so she's making up words.

All of these Pokémon are also obtainable within Pokémon Yellow: Pikachu is obtained as the starter Pokémon; Venusaur can be evolved from the Bulbasaur obtained in Cerulean City; Blastoise can evolved from the Squirtle obtained in Vermillion City; Charizard can be evolved from the Charmander obtained on Route 24; and Snorlax, Eevee, and Lapras can be obtained by aforementioned in-game events.

Red's Generation II team was also the same as that of Red in the Pokémon Adventures manga during his venture to Mt. Silver - while he didn't ownCharizard and Blastoise, he borrowed them for a time from Blue and Green respectively. However, Red did not own a Lapras as he does in Generation IV.

An unused default name for Red in the English Generation I games was "NINTEN". Conversely, Blue's unused default name is "SONY". While normally unviewable, changing a few addresses within the game's code can allow for these names to appear as shown here. This references the fact that in the years surrounding the releases of the Generation I games, Sony was Nintendo's main competition. Also Ninten is the default name of the main protagonist of Mother, another Nintendo game. Many of the people who worked on Mother also worked on Pokémon.

Hidden name data for Red in the Japanese Generation I games include: やまぐち Yamaguchi for the player and いしはら Ishihara for the rival in Pokémon Red and Green. Yamaguchi refers to Wataru Yamaguchi, an art director on the original games, while Ishihara refers to Tsunekaz Ishihara, who is now the head of The Pokémon Company. In Pokémon Blue, the player's unused default name is ゲーフリ Gēfuri, an abbreviation of Game Freak's Japanese name ゲームフリーク Gēmu Furīku. As for the rival, his name is クリチャ Kuricha, in what it seems a reference to Creatures, Inc. As for Pokémon Yellow, it preserved the rival's name from Pokémon Blue; however, for an unknown reason, the player's name was subtly altered by gaining an extra digit, becoming "ゲーフリ１". For more information, see this article.

All three Kanto starter Pokémon used in his Generation II battle have the moves that appeared on their Base Set cards.

In HeartGold and SoulSilver, apart from his Venusaur and Blastoise being fully evolved, Red's team is identical to that of Ash Ketchum throughout most of the Orange Islands anime arc (Ash's Bulbasaur and Squirtle were at the time, and still are presently, in their base forms).

Red's Generation II sprite is a colorized and mirrored version of his sprite from Pokémon Yellow. The same thing occurred to his rival, Blue.

In HeartGold and SoulSilver, Red is the only Trainer in-game who uses the battle transition effect from Generation II.

Red and all of his anime and manga counterparts own Pikachu, excluding Satoshi from Pokémon Zensho who evolved his into a Raichu.